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ERIC Number: EJ1066148
Record Type: Journal
Publication Date: 2015
Pages: 9
Abstractor: As Provided
ISBN: N/A
ISSN: EISSN-1554-9178
EISSN: N/A
Dividing the Force Concept Inventory into Two Equivalent Half-Length Tests
Han, Jing; Bao, Lei; Chen, Li; Cai, Tianfang; Pi, Yuan; Zhou, Shaona; Tu, Yan; Koenig, Kathleen
Physical Review Special Topics - Physics Education Research, v11 n1 p010112-1-010112-9 Jan-Jun 2015
The Force Concept Inventory (FCI) is a 30-question multiple-choice assessment that has been a building block for much of the physics education research done today. In practice, there are often concerns regarding the length of the test and possible test-retest effects. Since many studies in the literature use the mean score of the FCI as the primary variable, it would be useful then to have different shorter tests that can produce FCI-equivalent scores while providing the benefits of being quicker to administer and overcoming the test-retest effects. In this study, we divide the 1995 version of the FCI into two half-length tests; each contains a different subset of the original FCI questions. The two new tests are shorter, still cover the same set of concepts, and produce mean scores equivalent to those of the FCI. Using a large quantitative data set collected at a large midwestern university, we statistically compare the assessment features of the two half-length tests and the full-length FCI. The results show that the mean error of equivalent scores between any two of the three tests is within 3%. Scores from all tests are well correlated. Based on the analysis, it appears that the two half-length tests can be a viable option for score based assessment that need to administer tests quickly or need to measure short-term gains where using identical pre- and post-test questions is a concern.
American Physical Society. One Physics Ellipse 4th Floor, College Park, MD 20740-3844. Tel: 301-209-3200; Fax: 301-209-0865; e-mail: assocpub@aps.org; Web site: http://prst-per.aps.org
Publication Type: Journal Articles; Reports - Research
Education Level: Higher Education; Postsecondary Education
Audience: N/A
Language: English
Sponsor: National Institutes of Health (DHHS); National Science Foundation
Authoring Institution: N/A
Grant or Contract Numbers: RC1RR028402; DUE-0633473; DUE-1044724